Forum Replies Created

Justin, I would have expected your timing to be off. It probably feels like everything is happening too early. Your brain has to learn a new pattern. Don’t give up because it feels different. You’re on the right track. Watch Bard.

Justin, You’re counter rotating your shoulders because you break your hands on your back leg. When you break your hands at the back leg, the shoulders must turn and follow. Start your glove at chest height under your chin then break your hands in the middle of your body at your bellybutton and the problem goes away. This is an easy fix because you’re changing the way you start as opposed to a mechanical fault in the middle of your delivery. Good luck.

Tony, I think Cameron looks terrific. He does so many things right. It’s been a while since we’ve seen video here of a pitcher with no early hip rotation. He’s explosive, gets the arm involved later, move sideways, stays low and has good weight shift. As for the brace up problem, at landing, his foot is in front of his knee at a good angle to facilitate bracing up. I think this is a functional strength prblem, which is common at this age. Has he worked on a conditioning program during the Winter? Also, you may want to work with him on getting his glove up closer to his body at release to protect himself. Congrats to both of you again.

To clarify, Aaron, your rear hip isn’t collapsing and your front leg angle at landing looks ok which helps you brace. So, I don’t think your stride is too long. Just that shortening it an inch or two may help you transfer your weight to the front leg sooner and keep you from rotating the trunk early. What I see is that your front knee drifts forward just a little until your weight is transfered to the front leg. During the knee drift, your trunk rotates. Do you see that? Still, I would first work on keeping the back knee over the back foot as you drive to correct the early hip rotation. It will also help keep you moving sideways longer. Then address the early trunk rotation if you need to. You have a good attitude. Best of luck.

[quote=aaronpatterson;94495]Sounds good. Can’t wait to fix all of this… How much to you recommend I shorten my stride. It’s about 90% right now.[/quote] You look like you’re farther out than 90%. Maybe just a an inch or two. This isn’t a permanent shortening. You want good posture at landing and release. The main fix is the early trunk rotation which is killing velocity.

Aaron, The problems I see are mostly related to the lower body and not the trunk. You have early hip rotation. Instead of leading with the hip, you want to reach with the front leg. Look at the position of your lead leg as you stride out. Your foot is way out in front of your knee instead of being under it. Fixing this should also help with your upper body trailing your lower body (keep head over belly button). You also have pretty bad early trunk rotation. Your trunk has already rotated and your shoulders are square to the plate prior to brace up. You can correct this by shortening your stride a bit, which I think you should do anyway. First, work on how to move from the back leg to the front leg. You’re not really driving. You’re reaching.

[quote=aaronpatterson;94479]Is this from a poor weight shift or rushing my motion?[/quote] Aaron, Where is your head at ball release? Is it behind your front knee, over it, etc.? Also, leading with the front hip has more to do with the back leg and hip than the front hip.

I count 74 MLB pitchers that are currently on the DL and it’s just the first of May. Volquez is on the DL for TJ surgery (last season) plus a 50 game suspension for using performance enhancement drugs that was announced in April.

[quote=ajsvforce;94291]If you go back and read the other posts you will note,his size is not the result of a growth spurt,he has always been a big kid,and will keep growing like other kids. He just has a headstart on them. Andy[/quote] Andy, My son is 11 years old, 5’5″ and 150 lbs. and is built like a tank. His doctor projects him to be fully grown at 6’6″, 250 lbs. (I’m 6’7″). As time goes on, you may find, as I have, that the kids who are built like a mailbox have certain obstacles to overcome that the skinny, lanky, dish-rag kids don’t. It seems it takes longer for them to get in tune with their bodies and connect with their brain. Be patient, encourage him and resist the urge to over-coach. Give him an outline of what he should do and help him understand why he does what he does. Like Dick says, this is a perpetual journey. Nothing gets decided when you’re 10 or 11 years old. Best of luck,

We run across this all the time. The fields we often play on don’t have bullpens for warming up. So, I try to get David’s core temp. up using dynamics warmups then it’s to the mound with 6-8 warmup pitches then Blue says “Play Ball!!”. I attribute this to first inning blues epsecially in cool weather.

Tom, Typically, you would want to begin making changes from the ground up, i.e. lower body first. But when a kid has a fault that poses an immediate injury threat, that change should superceed all others for obvious reasons. Your son is swinging his elbow way above shoulder height. This causes stress on the shoulder and elbow. Work with him on getting his elbow to shoulder height. Fix this first, then proceed to the lower body.

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